///From the author: these are some of the ships from stories that take place in the Spacers Saga universe, which I designed and modeled in Blender before making infographics on Adobe Illustrator. This is likely to be an ongoing/continually updated series, so buckle up... The only limit here is the speed of light (and maybe not even that!)
Frontier Wars era
Tanganyika-class fast attack cruiser:
Following the Jovian Civil War (2325-2341), the Interplanetary Defense Corps (IDC) drew up plans to address the shifting political scene in the solar system, especially the surge in nationalism then sweeping across the frontier. One product was the Spacer 300 program, which aimed to modernize the IDC or “Spacer Corps” on the occasion of its tricentennial. Among many other R&D programs initiated in this time was that of the Tanganyika-class cruiser, which was designed to project power across the outer solar system by fielding a fast and maneuverable craft which could engage with peer enemies in space combat.
These vessels were centered around a single Remora-class pulsed fission engine which uses the thrust from a small nuclear detonation to propel the ship through space, and are designed for run-and-gun maneuver warfare, in which a number of CIWS laser turrets provide missile defense and close-in “knife fighting” firepower; three high performance ultra-relativistic electron beam (UREB) turrets are used to zap enemy spacecraft from medium range; and three quad-tube missile launchers deploy nuclear saltwater rocket-driven kinetic kill vehicle torpedoes to finish them off from intermediate to long range.
The order, processed jointly by the Martian Federal Shipyards and the Ceres Assembly, was for one hundred and twenty Tanganyika-class vessels, so as to put five of them in each of the twenty-four Aerospace Expeditionary Forces (AEFs) deployed across Solar Space at that point. The first of them were commissioned in 2351, but production was cut short only six years later due to the Zharan Uprising. More recently, they have been pressed into service in the Frontier War, where they have performed well in the fast attack role, often against numerically superior enemy forces deployed by the Alliance Armada.
Wayfarer-class interstellar transit vessel:
A new era of space travel opened in the early 23rd century, on a scale not seen since the dawn of fusion spacecraft propulsion in 2029. Throughout the latter decades of the 22nd century, the ICA and its various constituent organizations held talks to discuss the destiny of the star systems beyond our own, which were finally becoming accessible thanks to several revolutions in spacecraft propulsion. In 2229, the bicentennial of Larsen’s Gambit, a conglomerate of powerful interplanetary commercial interests called the Interstellar Consortium (ISC) announced Project Wayfarer to answer that question once and for all.
For these wealthy spacefaring magnates, overcoming the final obstacle to humanity’s conquest of the universe provided the impetus to spend many trillions of dollars to research, develop, and build a tetrad of massive (more than a kilometer and a half long) antimatter-powered spacecraft which would make the journey from Sol to Alpha Centauri to set up a permanent settlement there. By doing so, they would obtain immortality.
The first of these, the Spirit of Jupiter, was commissioned by the Consortium in the late 2250s and completed in 2267 following delays and cost overruns. Three more followed, each named for another of the giant planets from which their parent corporations had reaped such profits over the previous hundred and fifty years. The mission to the Alpha Centauri system left in 2274 and arrived almost forty years later. Its outcome, and the long-term political fallout from its immense cost, are now matters of historical record.
Reliable-class interplanetary plasma magnet cycler:
Interplanetary Dynamics (IPD) was established in 2122 by a trio of wealthy asteroid mining magnates, and was initially focused on the development and implementation of a new class of engine: the plasma magnet sail. This technology uses the dynamics between a magnetic plasma field and the solar wind to “sail” between the worlds of the outer solar system in only weeks or months, as opposed to years.
Since launching its first test flight in 2129, the company has grown by leaps and bounds and now operates as a major defense contractor leveraging their shipyards at Europa to build transport craft for the Spacer Corps, in addition to a broad portfolio of other military hardware. IPD's power and influence has increased swiftly as the need for military hardware has risen during the 24th century, so much so that by 2351 they have enough influence to sway elections across the system in order to safeguard their profits.
As of 2389, the company operates a fleet of more than three thousand spacecraft, many of which serve in its capacity as the Spacer Corps primary transport contractor. While a handful of other deep space transport contractors exist, none have the reach and funds of IPD, which has lobbied its way into the halls of power within the Martian Senate and the Confederation Legislative Council. IPD’s Board of Directors even leverages their wealth and power to control the manufacturing port of Europa as a veritable fiefdom.
Archangel-class intrasystem freighter:
As humanity expanded its reach into the farthest corners of Solar Space during the 22nd and 23rd centuries, the wealth of resources to be found there paved the way for a revolution in intrasystem transport. Although fusion drives remained the bread and butter of interplanetary flight, the funds made available by the feverish mining and processing of raw ore in the outer system made it possible to build up an infrastructure for less fuel hungry forms of travel. By the late 23rd century, the first beam riders were in flight.
This type of spacecraft makes use of a relatively simple concept, namely the use of a distant energy source (in most cases, a high-power laser beam fired from an orbital or asteroid station) which is captured by the large mirror held aloft by the spacecraft and used to heat up propellant. This removes the need to carry a power source (such as a fusion reactor) and the additional heavy fuel needed to power it, which in turn shaves precious weight off of the ship’s total mass and frees it up to be used for carrying more cargo.
The Archangels, so named because of the resemblance of their extended mirror arm to an angel’s halo, are the mid-sized cargo vans of the Jupiter and Saturn systems, able to carry more than 130 thousand cubic meters of cargo between the hundreds of inhabited moons and orbitals therein. As of 2349, the Angel of Chryse is serving in the merchant fleet of the Galilean Union, carrying goods back and forth between the moons of Jupiter on routine Hohmann transfer flights which are helping the Union to slowly rebuild from the nearly twenty-year civil war which tore through Jovian space only a few years prior.
Ranger-class passenger skiff:
Callisto-based Nexconn Industries launched its first generation of Ranger-class passenger skiffs in 2229 in the same week that the Interstellar Consortium announced Project Wayfarer. The Rangers were designed to be agile, durable, and versatile enough to fill a wide variety of roles, especially those related to the transport of light cargo and passengers. Unfortunately, this versatility has also made them useful in the hands of more disreputable groups. Chief among these is the naval wing of the Draconist Front.
When the Draconists took over the Callisto Assembly in 2324, they also seized its production lines of military and civilian hardware, including spacecraft. Among the ships captured or produced unauthorized were roughly seven hundred Ranger-class skiffs, which were then retrofitted with illicitly acquired armaments and turned into gunships and missile boats for use in their ongoing crusade to set up a neo-Marxist utopia in the outer solar system. The example above, redesignated as the Punho Justo (“Righteous Fist”), was sent as part of a flotilla bound for Saturn and used in the Draconists’ campaign to capture Titan.
For these and other reasons, some pundits have compared the Ranger-class to the Toyota Land Cruisers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, in that they are a civilian utility vehicle repurposed into an instrument of war by extremist factions bent on revolution. By 2389, though the Rangers are largely obsolete, they remain in service with family-owned transport outfits and outer system militia groups alike, and the class seems poised to last another hundred years before being relegated to history.
Frontier-class modular freighter:
One of the oldest designs currently fielded by any merchant navy in Solar Space, the Frontier-class traces its lineage back to the earliest days of fusion-powered deep space travel. Within only a few decades of Larsen’s Gambit and the revolution in space travel which followed, fusion engine-driven spacecraft were plowing through the uncharted waters of the outer solar system in search of wealth and opportunity. The Frontier-class is merely one of the latest descendants of the storied “torch ships” of yesteryear.
The Frontier-class was designed during the height of the Mars-Titan War (2292-2297) by enterprising Ceresian bureaucrats eager to cash in on the expected shakeup in the postwar order of Solar Space. Many hundreds of Frontiers have been produced since, and their effective mating of dependability and modularity has kept them in high demand among tradesmen, merchant mariners, and mining outfits alike. The example shown here, the MSV-6709 Mar del Plata, is on lease from the Republic of Ceres to the Solar Mining League, which is using it to haul several million tons of ore to processing facilities in the Martian sector.
This ship’s modularity stems from the fact that it is really only a propulsion bus which can be mated to a variety of interchangeable standardized cargo cabs. The Mar del Plata, for example, is currently mated to a C-152 Bonefish cab, which allows it to carry up to forty-eight separate standard containers containing approximately sixteen thousand cubic meters of storage space each. Other styles include the T-148 Jerboa tanker, which carries 18 canisters of fuel, water, or other consumables, and the C-159 Leatherback militarized cargo mover, which is used by the Spacer Corps to move arms and ammunition to combat zones.
Centauri War era
Bumblebee-class fast attack corvette:
[Ship modelling: Bien Carlos Manzares; livery credit to Megan Miller]
When the Bumblebee class entered service in 2507, it was intended to serve in a patrol and interdiction role, based on lessons learned during the Kuiper Belt Insurrections still ongoing at the time. During the Kuiper War (2525-2552), a conflict pitting the Union of Titan against the Martian Federation for control of the eponymous region of space, the Bumblebees excelled in frontline service for the Union, racing in and out of the vast engagement areas where much of the War's space battles took place using their excellent speed and agility.
When the War ended, however, many of these tried and tested vessels were left high and dry, so to speak, as their swiftness and biting close-in firepower were suddenly redundant in the postwar era. As a result, they wound up languishing in interplanetary scrap yards, awaiting the great breaking up that comes at the end of all ships’ service lives, at some point or another. This was considered a tragedy by those who served aboard them, many of whom held the vessels in high esteem for their abilities as combat implements and as homes away from home.
Some, like the Fool's Errand, were put to use as merchant vessels, salvage or rescue craft, and other new life roles. In the case of the Errand, its current crew of five (all of whom are deep space outcasts and vagabonds of the highest order) has repurposed the craft as a long-haul cargo hauler, with its high-performance Gungnir Corporation Mk. XVII nuclear salt water rocket put to good use for pushing high-priority cargo across the Kuiper Belt - if they can manage to keep enough nuclear fuel in the tanks to keep her flying, that is...
Scimitar-class missile cruiser:
As one of the major powers in Local Space, the Martian Federation maintains a fleet of more than forty-two hundred vessels (although nearly a third of these are nominally obsolete or less advanced classes as of 2564, which are maintained by Martian Fleet Command solely to fill out its ranks in the event of a return to open war with the Solar Union), each of which is ready to venture out and defend the interest of Father Mars. These vessels are commonly named after bladed weapons as an homage to Mars’ namesake.
Intended to be one of the premiere ships of the line for the Martian Federal Navy during the Kuiper War, the Scimitar-class missile cruiser wasn’t introduced until 2549, only three years before the war ended. As a result, it has instead found a second life as a long-range patrol and interdiction specialist, with several dozen of its class patrolling the deep space trade lanes of the Kuiper Belt in the early 2560s.
One of these, the Gratuitous Fortune, is on patrol in the outer reaches of the Haumea sector in 2564 when a merchant hauler called the Fool’s Errand comes in range–despite not being on the official registry for travel in that sector. As a permit enforcement vessel, the Gratuitous Fortune is obliged to chase down the erroneous traveler and search their cargo for contraband–or else shoot her out of the sky. The chase that ensues, with an Outer System Patrol cutter tagging along, is the introductory scene in INFINITUM.
More to come, when it's ready...
This is brilliant. You simply must expand on this.